Joseph Stack, frustrated American

Commentary By Ron Beasley

Conservative Paul Craig Roberts has a must read commentary in Counter Punch, The Last Flight of Joseph Stack.

Joseph Stack, frustrated American, flew his airplane into an Austin, Texas, office building. He was one of the 79 per cent of Americans who have given up on “their” government.

The latest Rasmussen Poll indicates that the vast majority of Americans are convinced that “their” government is totally unresponsive to them, their concerns, and their needs. Rasmussen found that only 21 per cent of the American population agree that the U.S. government has the consent of the governed, and that 21 per cent is comprised of the political class itself and liberals. Rasmussen concludes that the gap between the American population and the politicians who rule them “may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century.”

My only disagreement with the above is the inclusion of liberals who like me also feel their government is unresponsive.   He then compares Stack to the Palestinians:

Indications are that Joseph Stack was sane. Like Palestinians faced with Israeli jet fighters, helicopter gunships, tanks, missiles and poison gas, Stack realized that he was powerless. A suicide attack was the only weapon left to him.

That's right, terrorism is the only weapon for the powerless and the Americans on Main Street are like Stack, feeling powerless.

The government and its propaganda ministry do not want to call Stack a terrorist.  “Terrorist” is a term the government reserves for Muslims who do not like what Israel does to Palestinians and the U.S. government does to Muslim countries.

But Stack experienced the same frustrations and emotions as Muslims who can’t take it any longer and strap on a suicide vest.  

“Violence,” Stack wrote, “not only is the answer, it is the only answer.” Stack concluded that nothing short of violence will get the attention of a government that has turned its back on the American people.

Anger is building up. People are beginning to do unusual things. Terry Hoskins bulldozed his house rather than allow a bank to foreclose on it. The local TV station conducted an online survey and found that 79 per cent of respondents agreed with Hoskins’ action.

Perhaps the turning point was the federal government’s bailout of the investment banks whose reckless misbehavior diminished Americans’ retirement savings for the second time in eight years. Now a former head of the most culpable bank is campaigning to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits in order to pay for the bailout. President Obama has obliged him by creating a “deficit commission.”

The “deficit commission” will be used to gut Social Security, just as the private insurance health plan is paid for by cutting $500 billion out of Medicare.

It could not be more clear that government represents the interest groups that finance the election campaigns.

Conservatives used to say that Washington’s power should be curtailed in behalf of state and local governments that are “closer to the people.” But of course state and local governments are also controlled by interest groups. 

..........

Joseph Stack, Terry Hoskins, and 79 per cent of the American population came to the realization that government does not represent them. Government represents monied interests for whom it bends the rules designed to protect the public, thus creating a legally privileged class.

I may be a "liberal"  but I feel the same frustrations.  So where could all of this lead?

 

Bruce Judson gives us some ideas in It Could Happen Here: America on the Brink.

From Thom Hartman's review:

The book opens with a series of real-world news clips about how nuclear material necessary to make dirty bombs has gone missing all over the world, and how economic rot and unrest are roiling the American heartland. Then Judson steps into the single chapter of fiction in the book, in which he speculates how an American Revolution may happen in the 21st century. It involves a revolutionary group that seems like a well intentioned but determined melding of SDS and Tea Partiers – and they have several dirty bombs. The first goes off – with enough warning that nobody is hurt – just off the coast of New Jersey.

News reports then begin to pour in: “Stocks tumbled by over 18 percent yesterday on news that a dirty bomb was exploded, most likely by terrorists, off the Atlantic coast of the United States. The Dow fell by 19 percent, the NASDAQ by 21 percent, and the S&P 500 Index by almost 20 percent in one of the largest single-day percentage declines in the history of the stock market.”

From there, the “Americans for Economic Equality” (the aforementioned “terrorist” group) make demands to return America to a more egalitarian society by taxing the rich and increasing benefits like health care for all to working people. The President and Congress “stand strong” against the “terrorists,” refusing to accede to their demands or negotiate with them. So a second dirty bomb goes off….and I’ll leave you to read the rest of this great bit of fictional speculation.

After this all-too-believable narrative – a sort of “people friendly” version of The Turner Diaries – Judson then launches into a detailed explanation of why revolutions have historically happened, and details why America may be next.

Comments

[Cheryl Rofer]

"A dirty bomb was exploded off the Atlantic Coast of the United States"?

So who would care? It only makes sense to explode a dirty bomb in a city.

But I suppose the exchanges are dumb enough to panic. Time to buy!

[fledermaus]

The next step is the gulags. Erm, excuse me I mean "work centers".

[M. Bouffant]

Conservatives used to say that Washington’s power should be curtailed in behalf of state and local governments that are “closer to the people.” But of course state and local governments are also controlled by interest groups.

Actually, it's much easier to own & operate state & local gov'ts. than the federal gov't. But that's some common sense that seems to have escaped the "common-sensers."

[Curmudgeon]

Quite frankly, anyone who suggests a left-wing revolution is even remotely possible in the US needs their head examined. The American zeitgeist allows only for right wing populist violence.

If there is violence in the American future, it will stem from right wing populism egged on by astroturf groups. Don't think of a glorious people's revolt, think of last summer's anti-health care rallies: thousands of angry and irredeemably stupid Americans threatening violence to protect health industry profits.

If there is violence in the American future, it will be the violence of angry and irredeemably stupid Americans bombing Democrats, gays, non-whites and the poor while demanding that all true wealth comes from eliminating all taxes on the wealthy.

[anna missed]

For the sake of clarity, we should get this much straight. Joe Stack was a terrorist, and committed a terrorist act, and was a pristine example of the classic definition of what terrorism is. You can't allow the ethnicity, religion, or more significantly, the motivation, of the perpetrator to influence judgment as to whether the act was terrorism or not. Not unless you are in favor of allowing the term to become meaningless.

The fact that the right wing, and especially the Democratic Party now controlling the government, refuses to label this act as terrorism is clear evidence that they prefer the term to remain meaningless in definition, which is nothing short of admitting that for them that it's nothing more than a convenient tool for propaganda. Which is surprising (or expected), since it has been the centerpiece justification of domestic and foreign policy, several wars, and trillions of dollars, for almost ten years.

As to whether Stack's terrorism was right or left is only interesting as a means to identify the motivation of the act, whether it is interconnected to other such sympathies, and what threat level it subsequently rises to. Judging from Stack's "manifesto/suicide note" his complex of varying motivations could all be reduced down to the general rubric of "hatred of the government". Stack hates the government for a variety of reasons, some of which involve the government having too much control (base closings that killed his business, bitching about taxes, etc.) and some involve the government not having enough control (failure to regulate wall street, foreign involvements, the health care industry failure, and etc.) Interestingly enough, this hatred of the government is contradictory in itself - does he want more/better government, or does he want to be rid of government altogether? And while this contradiction is endemic in the American psyche, especially the tea party types, his eventual and ultimate tactical decision was pure right wing intimidation, of amplifying up a frustration for government into an actual terrorist attack upon the government itself - in order to send a political message.

[anna missed]

I should probably add that in comparison to the left/right differential in American politics, that there is no active and current left wing narrative that could (attempt to) justify a terrorist attack on the government itself, while by the same token there is a plethora of right wing anti-government agendas currently active, the tea party being one of many. These agendas of course don't want to "officially" endorse such actions because they don't want the taint they labor over so obsessively against the "other" to be applied to themselves. The government itself is also apparently under the same spell because it would undermine the foreign "other" in the sense that it might identify that foreign "other" with its domestic opponents - not that the right would have the same reciprocal reservations, which they don't.

What Roberts is doing is a subtle attempt to blur the ideological differences between the right and left that have the ultimate effect of demonizing the government, in true libertarian fashion - and to the benefit of that (anti-government) political perspective. Joe Stack's plight has absolutely no metaphoric resonance with the plight of Palestinians under Israeli occupation, as Joe Stack owned a nice house, a truck, and personal airplane - as opposed to being bombed and sieged into oblivion. In sum, there is a big difference between wanting to eliminate government and wanting to reform or circumvent it by another kind of government and a leftist would prefer the latter two solutions.

[Kat]

The Daily Show segment from Monday, Feb 22, 2010:

Rage Within the Machine - Progressivism

Short version:

Glenn Beck and his magical erasable truth board -- his message of what ails America.

Beck:
Progressivism -- this is the disease that ails America.

The argument was, 'well, you're a Marxist - you're a Communist.'

'No, no. I'm not. I'm a Progressive.'

Well, what's the difference?

Revolution or Evolution -- that's the difference.

Revolution or Evolution

Well, there's no difference except one requires a gun, and the other does it slowly, piece by piece.

Jon Stewart:
So... Progressives... are slow, unarmed Communists?

That's the worst kind of Commie! ...

What have these Progressives done to us -- what have they done??!

Beck next takes us all the way back to Woodrow Wilson...

Watch for yourself -- it's only 5 minutes.